Fireworkz and Fireworkz Pro are part of the Z family of applications from Colton Software. This family includes the stand-alone applications Wordz, Resultz and Recordz. These stand-alone applications were developed for systems with very little memory in the early 1990s and are no longer available separately.
Wordz could be used alone as a word processor to write letters, reports, books, invitations, shopping lists, schedules and other documents.
Resultz could be used alone as a spreadsheet to perform calculations, analyse figures, and produce colourful charts.
Recordz could be used alone as a database to store and manage all kinds of data from school and business information to personal details about projects and collections.
Fireworkz combines the features of Wordz and Resultz enabling you to do even more; incorporate live results in your reports, or perform an automatic mail-merge to your friends or customers, for example. Fireworkz is available on RISC OS and Microsoft Windows.
Fireworkz Pro further combines the database features of Recordz with the word processing features of Wordz and the spreadsheet facilities of Resultz enabling you to create fully integrated documents. Fireworkz Pro is only available on RISC OS.
Once you have learned to use one of these programs you will find it easy to use the other members of the family, because they share much of the same interface and have been designed to work well together. This is true even if you move from RISC OS to Windows or vice versa; the programs have been designed to be as similar as possible on each platform.
This Getting Started Guide includes all the information you need to start using Fireworkz on RISC OS.
It is designed to give you an overall feel for how to use Fireworkz by taking you through several examples which you can try out on the computer as you are reading. The examples deal separately with word processing and spreadsheet use before a final example demonstrates Fireworkz’ capacity to combine the different sorts of work.
If you have used Fireworkz before or are an experienced user of other word processors, spreadsheets or database programs we recommend that you glance through the appropriate chapters before moving on to the main User Guide, where you will find more information about the program and its features. You will probably encounter features of Fireworkz which are new to you and you will get a feel for how Fireworkz differs from software that you have used before.
If you haven’t used this type of software before, we recommend that you work through all of the examples in the Getting Started Guide. As you do so, you will learn a lot about the different types of work Fireworkz can help you with. You will almost certainly discover ways of doing things which you hadn’t imagined were possible. Whilst most people try to avoid reading software documentation if they can, a little extra time spent studying now can save you a lot of time later on.
Fireworkz Pro: A tutorial for the database can be found in the Database Guide.
This Getting Started Guide assumes that you are already reasonably familiar with the way your computer works. If you are new to computing, you are advised to familiarise yourself both with the relevant terminology and the basics of using your computer. You will need to know how to:
You should understand terms such as directory, double-click and dialogue box.
You should be able to find all this information in the system documentation which came with your computer. The tutorial chapters in this Getting Started Guide also provide a reminder of these skills.
The Glossary gives a non-technical explanation of those terms used throughout the Getting Started Guide which you may not have come across before.
When working your way through the tutorial chapters, you will see that certain stylistic conventions are used to make it easier for you to see what you should do at each stage, what you should type in and what you should choose from menus.
Certain buttons, options and commands always appear in the text in bold type. These include:
In some places there is text for you to type in. This is always shown in a typewriter-style font, like this:
Type this text on your computer exactly as you see it.
When the text given represents what you will type, for example, the name to be given to a file before saving it, this is shown by using italics, such as:
Type filename in the dialogue box which appears.
There are several keyboard shortcuts which you can use in Fireworkz.
If you see a key combination such as Ctrl-X, it means you should press the keys together in the following way:
If you see a key combination such as Ctrl-Shift-X, it means you should press the keys together in the following way:
Note that the Control key is also represented by ^ and is shown as such on menu short cuts. So, for example, if you see ^X you should press and hold down the Control key, press and release X and then release the Control key. Similarly, the Shift key is also represented by a broad up-arrow.
Some commands can be accessed directly by pressing a function key. Where this is the case the function key is referred to by the name shown on the key cap itself; for example function key F1.
You will see many references to the caret. This is the special pointer which shows you where you are in a document, and where any new text you add will be placed.